Gender Equity on the Supreme Court – Is it Really Irrelevant?

Tara Kirsten King

Recently in Slate magazine, Dahlia Lithwick wrote a compelling piece arguing the high demand for a more gender balanced court. I don’t necessarily agree with some of her language–words such as gender are problematic as a result of socially constructed ideologies, but I do agree 100% with the article as a whole .

“Still, beneath all the formal legal reasoning at the Supreme Court, there are the countless stories of casual influence: the female law clerks, the secretaries, and the family members whose experiences, like Marshall’s, slowly taught insulated justices how much they needed to learn. It’s long past time for women to influence the high court in more direct ways. Women who want Obama to push for gender balance at the Supreme Court need to remind him that fighting for gender diversity at the high court isn’t just for show. The real point may be to tell.” (source)

If I were a religious person I would exclaim, Hallelujah… But instead I’m exclaiming are you fucking kidding me?! The critique of Lithwick is so assanine I find it comical. Suddenly some of the “feminists” are deprecative and claim that advocating for a female justice is essentialist…

“This question is critical. All women do not think the same way, share the same opinions, nor agree on what it means to be a woman in America in the early 21st century. It would be folly to treat women like a deck of cards – “pick a woman, any woman” – and hope that the desired result – that being concern for women – will be obtained based on the presence of two X chromosomes. When politically disenfranchised groups are placed in prominent positions, this danger is ever present. Clarence Thomas and Thurgood Marshall are both African American males, but their judicial philosophies are entirely opposite. Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton share little in common politically despite sharing a race and gender. Thus, in the desire to see a woman on the Court we must be clear on what is desired. I believe what most people are saying when they say “we need a female justice” is that there should be someone on the Court who cares about women’s rights and can effectively articulate those positions. But must this person necessarily be a woman? …However, there are men out there that can understand these concepts. Justice Blackmun – a man – was responsible for Roe and defended that decision, as well as women’s reproductive rights in other ways during his tenure on the Court. Given the choice between a Justice Blackmun and a justice who cares little about the myriad problems women face but who happens to be a woman – most women’s rights advocates would probably take the guy. (source)

Of course men have the potential to be advocates for women as much as women have the potential to be self loathing misogynists. And NO ALL WOMEN DO NOT THINK THE SAME (another thing to be thankful for)…Lithwick is merely suggesting that we need another woman on the Supreme Court—regardless of the way they interpret the world. Herein lies the irony with the critiques–now that we are in the post modern flux of constant gender deviation and deconstruction, patriarchy still trumps through its reproductive and ubiquitous nature and suddenly it appears that equality between men and women is irrelevant. But then again I suppose that is not surprising because life becomes so much easier when we become blind to color, race, sex and gender and stew in our “melting pot.”

The article mentioned above which critiques Lithwick’s “essentialism” ends as follows:“However, it is also true that in any human group, people bring their past and personal philosophies to bear.”
It would then seem to follow that allowing the Supreme Court to go back to a homogenized boys club is sound logic…HA HA HA. I think what I will do is go get my” post-modern stick” of rational thought and start tapping people so they can wake up because saying gender shouldn’t matter in terms of proportionality on the Supreme Court is like saying that marriage rights don’t need to be defined as a measure for achieving “equality” and that Columbus discovered America…